kimik

That was an alternate earth Batman/Catwoman being married story in Brave and the Bold #197 if I recall correctly.

Kevin, thanks for whatever you did to get this information posted here. I also received a response from Jessica today.

I would have no clue about that, unfortunately. Growing up in rural Alberta, I used to have one of the grocery stores in town bring in books for me instead of doing mail order from a store in Edmonton (I did that for a bit until their packing went down hill and every shipment had corner damage). Most weeks they would not put the new books out until I had a chance to cherry pick the best copies first.

All I know is that he bought them new. I am not certain whether he had to visit multiple newsstands, but my guess would be yes. The only other option would have been ordering from one of the local retailers where he bought books. I did meet a couple of old collectors (i.e. collected in the 60s and sold their collections late 70s and early 80s) who did have their local pharmacy order books for them and set them aside so it did happen. The most interesting story from one of them was about the time he and buddy, both big Lovecraft and REH fans, drove down to the US in the mid 60s (I can't remember the exact year) to drop in on Arkham House. I met him at a local store in 2005 or 2006 when he was selling off the books - he had some cool items signed by some the writers and artists. He said that they had a great time with August Derleth the day they were there and he showed me some of the books that they picked up and/or were given that Derleth signed. It was interesting to spend a couple of hours chatting the early days of comic collecting with him (he belonged to a comic collector "club" in university in the early 60s). He sold off his GA collection in the early 1970s when he was starting a family since prices were "getting so high" (he said he had all of the GA keys and pretty much complete runs for every Timely, DC and Fawcett title) and then his SA collection in the 80s. He kept all of his hardcover books though. I passed on most on them since I do not collect books, but I kind of wish I had bought them now since they were in immaculate shape - he did have a couple of Gnome Conan HCs in beautiful shape that I did snag since I was completing the set at the time.

It is fricking terrible. We are in 3102 which is in the hall away from all of the Artists and other comic dealers from the look of things. I am still not getting a response from Jessica Sommerville re: the space decisions. We have been in the other hall for the past 7 - 10 years that Ken ran the show and collectors would look for us right off the start. Now we are in a bad location (the dead hall) where people may not be able to find us. Ugh. At the Red & White show last weekend there were a number of comic/toys/memorabilia vendors that I talked to who are not doing the Edmonton Expo this year due to the way they were handled at the Calgary Expo, and most will not be at the Calgary Expo again. That is not a good sign. Informa needs to up its game on the vendor relationship management side big time. The finance department has been the only one who has returned my e-mails re: when we would find out about booth space, and that was to tell me that someone would be contacting us after the Toronto FanExpo.

Based on a number of OO collections I picked up in the mid to late 00s, there was some level of speculation on the 1968 Marvel #1s/#100s. These the collections had 4 - 6 copies left of the #1s (e.g. Iron Man, Sub-Mariner, Silver Surfer, Nick Fury) and #100s (Captain America #100 and Hulk #102) after the OOs had traded some over the years. One collection I was able to land from an intermediary had 8 - 12 copies of Surfer 1-18, Subby 1-20 or so, Iron man 1-20 or so, Nick Fury 1-15, Cap 100 - 120 or so, Hulk 102 - 120 or so, DD 40 - 60 something, Conan 1-7 and Sgt. Fury issues from that timeframe. The intermediary said he started with 20 copies of each book and had already slabbed and sold off a bunch, but he needed cash fast for another deal. The OO had speculated on a few Marvel titles from 1968 - 1970, buying 20 of each. The books were all beautiful - I slabbed 200 of them hitting 40 something 9.8s (I think it was 44 or 45), 50 some 9.6s, 80 or so 9.4s, and just under 20 9.2s without pressing (I still have a spreadsheet with the serial numbers just in case I can find them someday for a press). The only better book I hit in 9.8 was a copy of Surfer #4 (the person I bought the leftovers from said he hit 2 on his submissions), but it was a fun and weird (I have no idea why the nothing DD and Sgt. Fury runs were in there instead of ASM and FF) mini-collection to buy nonetheless.

There was a thread a few years back where some older collectors/store owners were talking about speculating big on the 1968 Marvel "#1s" the Conan #1 and the Adams GL run after the first few issues. Personally speaking, I have picked up a number of collections over the years that had multiples (up to 20 copies) of the following: Nick Fury #1-15 Silver Surfer #1-18 Iron Man #1-20 Captain America #100 - 120 and then all kinds of late 60s and early 70s Marvel and DC #1s.

Cavill was fine as Supes - he had the physique and looks to pull it off. Him kicking azz as the reanimated Supes was the best part of the JL movie. I guess the fact that he spurned them on the Shazam cameo rubbed the WB/DC decision makers a bit raw? The shift in focus to Supergirl will be interesting. It looks like WB/AT&T is going to go full out with their female leads (WW, Harley, Supergirl, Batgirl (?) ), which I can understand based on the success of WW. Who they cast in the roles will be key. Gadot was perfect as WW and Robbie did a good job as Harley.

Just two weeks before the show.

I took the long box of DC, the short box of Dell Ducks and other assorted GA, and a long box of lesser Marvel titles/books from the new collection to the show. I sold around 1/3 of each of the of the Marvel and DC longs, and 12 - 15 of the Ducks/GA books (none of the Ducks or GA priced at over $100 though). It was a show where $20 - $40 GA/SA/BA sold well, with a few $100 - $200 items mixed in. I did okay with slow and steady sales of this kind of stuff which is great. Sell the common/lesser books and keep the good stuff.

Hulk is scared of Thanos. Why shouldn't Banner be as well?

If the booth space shrinks, I will likely not bother going back to Edmonton next year as an exhibitor. Looking at the floorplan, it appears that there are fewer vendors than there were last year. It will be interesting to see how things go if they raise prices and reduce booth sizes going forward.

I just e-mailed Jessica again. She is the person that we are supposed to contact if we have any questions, but she did not respond to my first e-mail. The customer service has been quite poor so far compared to how Ken used to run things for both Calgary and Edmonton. Ken or Mary-Ann would respond within hours of an e-mail, if not minutes.

There are probably stores that still have bulk ASM 300s in back stock/warehouses that are not aware of them. I passed on a long box of ASM #300s in 2001 or 2002 when a former LCS owner was cleaning out a storage locker that they withheld from the new owner when they sold their store in 1997 or 1998. They also three longs of McSpidey 1s - 1 long each of gold, silver and regular covers. I bought a few copies of ASM 300 at $5 box apiece to flip on eBay, but backed out on the entire long the first day I saw them since they had a bunch of Silver Age that I wanted instead. When I went back later that week, all of the ASM 300s were gone.

And yet this is considered a first appearance:

So..............the organizers finally released their floorplan and we got moved to a worse location for the second straight FanExpo run event in Alberta. Ugh. I am not happy, to say the least.

Thanks. There are some higher grade mid 60s books, but the majority of the early runs are low to mid grade. The ASM 14s, one of the 4s, and a couple of other issues may surprise me in the end. He had complete early SA runs of all Marvel titles except for FF (he settled for a CGC 9.4 GRR 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 - 10, 12). As a collector that started in the 80s, he felt the same way about that title as I do. That being said, his FF run is complete from #17 - 67, with doubles of 52. He did have six copies of FF #12, though, which was nice to see and multiples of some of the #1s. I am slowly posting more group pics in the Edmonton Expo thread, where the Marvel runs will be available for sale for the first time:

I am not certain re: FF #65. It has already seen its huge run up. I think that MSH 12 and FF 2 have more potential since they have not seen that big jump yet.

Looks like MSH 12 and FF 2 should see a more serious lift: https://ew.com/movies/captain-marvel-first-look-images/

So, MSH 12 and FF 2 should see a lift off based on the photos as well?

Just picked up a new collection and now have an early ASM run that I think I am going to keep. The owner focused on SA books primarily so no copies of 129 or 194 (I have those well covered anyways), unfortunately, but he did have an interesting copy of #300 that is signed by McFarlane.

He is killing it on this Catwoman run so far.

The DC SA keys will see another run in a couple of years as the cycle between Marvel and DC keys continues. Right now it is the Marvel keys that are spiking while DC SAs languish (except for the Batman keys as they seem to be holding and/or rising). The time to accumulate them was a year or two ago. Now that the cycle is turning, we should see a good time to buy DC SA keys next year while Marvel SA keys continue to run.

Here is the first Marvel run that i will be bringing to the Expo: